Whoo, cleared world 7 in a day while avoiding homework and other tasks. Died enough times on the boss stage that both of the "loser" blocks showed up... but I still gained around thirty lives by the time I beat that world. Seriously, that boomerang-throwing female koopa boss is great for getting lives from... She'll jump around inside her shell and try to smash you, but if you jump on top of her shell before she gets going... you just keep bouncing there and getting 1-Ups! You just have to make sure to jump off of the shell before she gets up and starts throwing boomerangs again.

On my way to 100%-ing this one. The following are Special World spoilers...

Alright so first off... Special is great. This is the kind of Mario platforming I can get down with. Plenty of challenge and skill required. As you near World 7/8 it gets teeth-grindingly hard. Remember that stockpile of lives you had from the original 8 worlds? YOU GONNA NEED IT!

Something new they introduced in the Special worlds is Shadow Mario, who follows exactly in your footsteps as you run around. Sounds pretty innocuous, but it really trips you up. You can't go in the same place twice! Then they bust out the 30s time-limit levels. You start with only 30s and you must grab extra time from enemies or strewn about the levels. THEN they deal out the Shadow Mario & 30s combo! Sounds pretty hard, right? Well better get used to it because Nintendo evidently ran out of ideas 3/4 of the way into finishing the Special World. Virtually every single level from World 6 onward is the dreaded SM & 30s time combo. At first it was great to see every now and again -- you knew it was gonna be hard when you saw that intro. Then it comes every level and just gets tiring and repetitive.

Also in order to 100% this game you have to not only get all the star coins in every level, and not only get the golden flagpoles (finish the level by landing on top of the pole), but you gotta do it all with both Mario AND Luigi. Relentless.

Overall though, great package. Glad they included the Special World and all. Just wish they still had some ideas near the end... now onto S8-Crown! Supposedly this is one of the hardest levels ever crafted...

It's worth it. The later Special World levels are awesome (except for maybe when they start doling out SM&30s combos all the time). There are some levels that will really test your limits (of your patience).